1001 Positively True Stories of An Indie Filmmaker

I’m shooting for the next four days in Studio City, CA. Broken wrist and all.

Renascence Rises Like the Phoenix

I’ve spent an obsessive amount of time rebooting, rewriting and reworking my sci-fi action TV pilot spec script, Renascence Odyssey.  I had to do some serious changing including killing off the plot line about husband who’s missing in action, reworking the techie language and infusing more natural comedy.

The end result is something that transcends the previous version by leaps and bounds. I also hope to set it apart as a current writing sample. Oh, and when I’m done writing the second hour of the pilot I’ll tweak it again into script format.

Today I finished renaming 500+ video files to use in the new edit of “Nanny & The Professional.” As part of the prep phase I also created folders for my video FX and audio FX. I also added a folder for temp music and pictures that I may use. I’m still pondering a new name for the film, although I may ultimately decide to keep what I have. I also cleared about 30GB from my external hard disk. If all goes well, I should begin editing sometime next week. These are very exciting times for me

It’s a great day for you to take a gamble in love or your career — roll the dice!

Overview

Listen to your dreams tonight — they are telling you what you need to hear and then some. Separating the good stuff from the random noise is even easier than usual, too, so you should get the message.

I’m Trying to Make a “Movie,” Not a FILM!

That’s one of the funniest lines Eddie Murphy uttered in BOWFINGER. The case he was trying to make to his agent was that He acknowledged his role as an action hero movie star. He didn’t consider himself an “actor” and wasn’t into cerebral parts. He wanted to good lines, like ” I’ll be back.” or “Yippe-ki-yay, mutherfucka!”

Broken Hearts Club is a movie — not a film. Truth is, I don’t make films. I make popcorn movies that make you laugh, cry, and even think, but never “explore the human internal dichotomy of need versus desire and the mental genuflection to the Universe in the foreshadowing of the decline of civilization by the Internet.”

No. Not this dood.

I write what I write. I accept my place in this world …and I love my place! The same things are available to me as are available to those great individuals who take on causes and wield them like a standard blowing in the wind.  Documentaries are hot. Biopics are hot. History is hot. But I don’t write those things. I write for the audience to escape. If they happen to take a few moments over coffee to think about the “movie” they’ve just seen, awesome. But my gig ends at the close of the final credits. that’s my job as a filmmaker. Not to change the world, but to affect the audience…2 hours at a time.

And I love it!!

I’m not big on self-pity. I can barely tolerate it at any level. The whole woe-is-me thing gets old quickly for me. I understand that often we need to waddle for a minute. I get it. But I’m definitely into minimizing the waddle period as much as possible.

However, I do understand that this is a bit of a flaw on my part. I should make attempts to be more understanding, and to reach out with a comforting arm. I realize that. And I do try. Unfortunately I’m cursed with a very expressive face — I get it from my dad who could melt ice with one quick look. When  the pity-party begins I start tuning out — and you can see it all on my face. It’s not pretty.

In my defense I must say that I’ve developed this habit over years, out of necessity. It’s like the old exchange goes:

Friend1: Hey, how are you doing?
Friend2: Oh I can’t complain. And even if I did, no one would listen.

Chronic complainers do nothing but complain. About everything. All the time. Every chance they get. But I’ve come to place more value in actually doing something about that which compels me to complain. So, pity-party for a few moments, followed by action until results are achieved. Period.

But I’m learning to slow down and offer more comfort instead of rushing someone out of the pity-party and  into the “action” phase.

But like the process of addicts….it’s one day at a time.

There’s quite a bit of things I do for myself, on my own, and I think it might shed some light on how things actually get done in the world of Angelo-dom.

My background is in Information Technology and so I’m lucky to be fairly ahead of the curve when it comes to using different computer applications to get things done. Basically it helps me manage the tools I need to exploit my talents as a writer, director and filmmaker overall. I’m self-taught on all these applications because I needed them. But, I like technology so I’m sure that makes it easier.

Here are the tools I use.

Microsoft FrontPage 2003 – I build and manage my own websites. Five of them to be precise. FrontPage is like Microsoft Word on HTML steroids.  It makes building a website simple as long as you can properly manipulate tables.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 – Everyone knows Photoshop. I used it to manipulate my photos for use on my webpages.

Fetch and Cyberduck FTP – for a long while I was using the trial version of Fetch FTP software for the Mac. I recently switched to CyberDuck because it’s a freeware, opensource application built on Unix/Linix technology.  Fetch kept asking me to purchase and made me wait like 3 minutes for the trial to be renewed everything I opened it. The primary reason I’m even writing this blog is because I spent 3 days looking for another good FTP program. I found Filezilla but all the downloads for the Mac were crappy

WS_FTP – while my main personal computers are Macs I was brought up in a PC environment. WS_FTP is a sumple FTP solution for Windows PC’s. It totally gets the job done.

QuickTime Pro – on the Mac and PC to encode and export video and audio files into different formats using different codecs.

Roxio Toast Titanium – I used to to burn CDs and DVDs on my mac. I don’t usually burn DVDs on my PC but when I do I use  Roxio Creator Basic. I also use an older version of Nero Burning Rom on my PCs.

(O2M) Outlook to Mac. If you’re ever considering “going Mac” and you need to convert your old email files in Outlook to a Entourage of any email application for a Mac, the $10 price of this program is well worth it. I spenta week trying to export nd import my Outlook 2003 files to Entourage, Thunderbird and Mac Mail. I finally found this application and got it done in one hour.

DVDxDV Pro – I use this application on my Mac to “rip” the video files from DVDs (that play on your player). It’s not a decoder that use can use to pirate DVD, but for home made DVDs that you need to grab the raw video files from, it works great.

VisualHub – this is a cool little tool for the Mac that very quickly codes video and audio files into other formats. I generally use it now to convert quicktime  and mp3 files to Flash files. I choose flash because 90% of commercial sites use Flash and most users already have Flash installed on their machines

Final Draft 6.0 – screenwriting software (I have it for the Mac and PC)

Scriptware – screenwriting software for the PC

Final Cut Studio 2 – this is a suite of post production editing tools for the Mac. It’s second only to Avid (in my mind)

Adobe Production Premium CS3 – a post production editing suite of 10 applications for the PC.

Dreamweaver – I have this application for the Mac and for the PC. But my website is in Frontpage so I can only edit it from my PC. I am not looking forward to redesigning it in Dreamweaver but when I do, I will be able to make changes to my web from my Mac of my PCs

MacBook Pro – this is the laptop I uses in the field to export video from the P2 cards when shooting with Panasonic HD cameras. I also write on it as well.

HP/Compaq nc2400 – this is my small form factor laptop.

Dell Dimension 2400 – this is my PC desktop I am building for use with Adobe Production PRemium CS3

Mac Dual Core PowerPC Tower – my primary editing station. One day I will upgrade to a MacPro but now yet.

All my websites are hosted through WebMasters.com. This allows me to manage my email addresses myself, add/delete email addresses at will, run my blog (using WordPress technology), create my own FTP site,  and so much more. I probably won’t ever change from them because they give me nearly total control of my sites.

Buster is my Shih Tzu puppy. He just turned 1 year in May and he’s still very much a puppy. He somewhat rambunctious but fairly obedient. He was stinky so I bathed him and used a warm-air blow dryer to dry him off. Now he’s asleep at my feet. 

Earlier I had addressed three postcards to the folks on Good Day LA, Steve, Dorothy and Jillian. Next week, pending my money sitch, I’ll have three posters framed and shipped to them as well.

Then I addressed 35 postcards by hand. I wasn’t feeling very productive so I had to do something. I jumped on IMDP PRO, and just worked my way down the list of tier 1 talent agencies.  This time I focused on Innovative Artists and The Gersh Agency. I also added some addresses form United Talent Agency (UTA). for some reason I decided to send a postcard to every single literary agent at Gersh. I dunno why. I just did. So I scrolled through 31 pages of clients listings to see who was represented by an agent with the designation “literary” after his title. There were more names than I thought there would be, but I got them all. Tomorrow I go to the post office for real life postcard stamps (not over priced 1st class mail stamps)  and I mail them off. 

It’s all about buzz, right. So we gotta get people talking.  So in that respect, those of you fine folks reading this, feel free to send out an invitation for all your friends to visit www.brokeheartsclubfilm.com.

Tell them to tell two friends…and then they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on…

ps…I entered my short film, Love is for Democrats into the comedyshortcuts.net NBC diversity film festival. I also entered the short version of Broken Hearts Club  into the IndieFest USA film festival. Wish me luck!